(fl. 1904-1920), music teacher. (Dan Mulhern, Prof. D. Mulhern, Dr D. Mulhern) He was called professor because it was a Canadian custom of the time to refer to male music teachers (never women music teachers, apparently) by that title. D. Mulhern sold pianos and organs in Alexandria, and he was a teacher of piano there and in Montreal. In 1909, he opened a studio on Sherbrooke Street, Montreal. (Glengarry News 19 Feb. 1909)

     He was also involved in real estate transactions. In 1912, he bought the old Presbyterian church in Alexandria to convert it into housing, but another entrepreneur had acquired possession before the changeover to housing actually took place. (GN 1 Nov. 1912 and 14 Nov. 1913 ) In May 1913, Prof. Mulhern was having tenement houses built on Dominion Street South in Alexandria. (GN 9 and 16 May 1913) These tenement houses seem now (2006) to have been demolished. Also, in this pre-WWI period he acquired 10 lots in Montreal, close to property recently acquired by Hugh Munro the manufacturer. (GN 23 Feb. 1912) A property in Alexandria was known as the Mulhern Block (GN 30 Sept. 1921), presumably named for him.

     The Glengarry News sometimes carried the names of people to whom Prof. Mulhern had recently sold pianos, and of his Alexandria-area piano students. As late as 1983 the obituary of a woman born at Skye, Ont., noted that she taught piano, “after receiving her own instruction from Professor Mulhern in Alexandria.” (GN 23 Nov. 1983) In an obituary tribute to Mrs Agnes MacDonald (see life of her husband John Joseph Macdonald), Angus H. McDonell, who describes Mulhern as being “of Montreal and Alexandria,” says that, “Professor Mulhern, widely known in Montreal[‘s] elite musical fraternity, arranged that his 12-year-old pianist pupil from Alexandria, little Miss Agnes MacDonald, entertain by playing classical music at a dinner for Royal guests of the staid Windsor hotel.” (GN 27 Feb. 1991) Probably the story relates to the visit to Canada of the future George V in July 1908 . At any rate, she was invited again in 1911 to play at the Windsor Hotel. (GN 19 May 1911)

     Nothing has been discovered about the later life of Prof. Mulhern, who for some years had contributed substantially to local musical life.

Por, other material, on Prof. Mulhern, Glengarry News 8 March 1918, repr. from Canadian Music Trades Journal * ”recently… pianos”: GN 3 May 1907, 26 July 1912, 9 May 1913, 3 Oct. 1913) * piano students: GN 20 Nov. 1914 * buys, sells, Alexandria properties, GN 6 Feb. 1914, 16 Jan. 1920 * burning of Queen’s Hotel, Alexandria, endangers his residence, GN 6 Oct. 1916